1) Act 16:4 And as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered them the decrees to keep which had been ordained of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem. Act 16:5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily. the APOSTOLIC doctrine is preached… repentance, baptism,sanctification, baptism of the holy spirit and the signs and miracles. preaching Jesus Crucified and raised from the dead.

2) the evangelism. to let know the people of the outside that JESUS is the same yesterday today and for ever, to demonstrate the power of the word, to show love and compassion.

3) to keep the existing flock, to ban gossip and adopt gospel, to be one body in unity, to care one for another, to be the visible image of God on earth. that surely take effort to not be religious but to just simply follow the liberty of the chains of love in Christ. be blessed …Gen 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

It’s a scandal
By Herbert Mtowo
Have you ever realized that our lives are flooded with images of harmony: That is good friends do not quarrel. Lovers live happily forever after, mature adults do not become angry. I am sure you both identify with these scenarios, in your everyday life and experiences like I do.
These unrealistic romantic fantasies, forcefully marketed in parts our cultures and society, to try and promote the ideal affection without conflict. Yet we still have daily experiences of our own stumbling efforts to love well and our efforts are often accompanied by tension and distress. Believe you me with all these projections in our lives, we have good news to hate conflict—when nations are in conflict, they disrupt lives and lives are lost. Violent quarrels break up marriages, and relationships, many arguments end friendships. So many of these risks and end results have taught many of us to by all means avoid conflict at any price wish we could all understand that our effort to ignore conflict usually doesn’t work at all. Due to avoidance, comes mounting tensions that endanger our relationships/marriages and erodes our love.
I want you to know that conflict, as threatening as it seems and feels is very normal in very close relationships, be they marriage, friendships and work environments. Be reminded that when people come together at a level that touches their very significant values and needs, conflicts are bound to be part of the package, they are inevitable. The truth of the matter is, conflict is not all that bad, as portrayed and projected into our minds. The effects of conflict in a marriage or relationship are not necessarily destructive. Many Psychologists and marriage counselors will agree with me that, conflict can be a sign of health in a relationship/marriage. So don’t break up because of conflicts, its part of the process of becoming one and it’s healthy, or it may also symptom of distress. Conflict between people or lovers can also be an indication that they are engaging one another; something is going on there that is important to both of them. We need though to harness the energy of our conflict that it doesn’t it doesn’t work against us. A relationship, friendship or marriage which there is nothing important enough to fight for or about is more likely to die than one in which arguments sometimes occur. Hope we all know that indifference is a much greater enemy of intimacy than conflict.
Conflict is ordinary and inevitable. In any relationship that brings people together close: friends, teams, marriage, mark my words conflict is sure to arise. Even more if the people involved are both have strong personalities. It only becomes destructive and costly when we fail to face it virtuously. Jesus experienced it with the disciples too. For us to be virtuous in handling conflict more optimistically and to manage its sometimes frightening force, we need to do two things or take these steps.
First and foremost we need to realize that conflict is an honorable adult embrace, that’s one of the ways we hold each other. Willingness to confront the growing tension between us is a face of fidelity, a way of keeping our promises instead of fleeing them. Secondly, we heal our vision of conflict by seeing more clearly the underlying dynamics involved. It is a response to discrepancy. Though flight is also a wise way to respond to conflict, but it should never be a lifestyle. This valentine period, remember that conflict is critical part of life, an honorable dynamic of change and growth. It’s a scandal to think of conflict as evil.

Divorce is often associated with egoism, egocentrism, instability, lies and other sins, but because of the Israelites had hard hearts, the Lord permitted them to divorce (De 24:1. Mt 19:8). However, divorce was not part of the original plan of God (Ge 1:27; 2 :24. Mt 19:4-6) and should not be justified or welcomed among Christians.

In order to have a correct vision of the whole Divine Revelation, we have to underline that already before the coming of Jesus, the prophet Malachi had strongly spoken against divorce, cheating, violence and religious hypocrisy, “You ask, Why? It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is you partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel, and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment, says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not be unfaithful” (Ml 2:14-16). To understand the subject properly and not to be confused by the numerous human theories, we have always to remember that God hates divorce.

MATTHEW 5:31-32

Against divorce, Jesus spoke this way, «It has been said, Anyone who divorce his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:31-32).

The question that we should ask is: Why the one who repudiate his wife that has not been unfaithful causes her to become adulteress? If she has been faithful, how could she become adulteress? Could she become adulteress just because she has been repudiated by her husband?

The answer for that enigma comes from Paul, “By example, according to the law, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she married another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man” (Ro 7:2-3).

Paul repeats about the same concept, “A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgement, she is happier if she stays as she is – and I think that I too have the Spirit of God”

(1 Co 7:39-40).

We have to remember that then, the woman did not have the right of ownership; she had always to depend from someone, from her father or from her husband. It was like that even in Québec about 50 years ago, when the woman did not have the authority to the ownership and to sign a check. At that time, to work outside of the house for a woman was considered an immorality. For that reason, to survive, for a repudiated woman it was necessary to remarry or to become a servant, where she was often raped by the master of the house.

Have you ever gone through a day and become so exhausted that all you wanted to do was flop down on the sofa and zone out in front of the TV? I recently did. It had been a long, stressful day, and I just needed some time to relax and turn off my brain for the rest of the night. However, this was not going to happen. My mind began working overtime as I was drawn into the story line.

One of the characters, a young man in his early 20s, was just days away from the birth of his first child. As the show progressed, the young man revealed that when he was 10 years old, his father left him. Now, facing the birth of twin sons, he found himself terrified at the thought of being a father. He had nowhere to turn for advice and support, and he wanted to be a better father to his kids than his dad was to him.

As I watched, I felt like my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. I knew the pain this young man felt. I, too, have had a father who has left me fearful and unprepared for life as a man. I remember the sense of fear and hopelessness as I licked my wounds from the last round of verbal and emotional beatings from my father. I recognized the feelings this young man felt, wondering if I was doomed to repeat the same mistakes of my father.

Like the young man, I had reached out many times to other men in hope of support, advice, encouragement and love. Like him, I had been denied help by men who just didn’t want to be bothered. A few men gave me some help along the way, but because of the distance between us, they couldn’t give me the help that I needed. My desire for a man to help me through these tough issues was for the most part ignored. I had no one to reach out to, no one to help me and tell me everything would be OK. Thankfully, God did provide me with a godly mother to help me through this time. However, there were some times that it would have been more comfortable talking about certain things with a man.

As the show reached its conclusion, I wanted to just sit there and cry for the young man. I know it was only a TV show, but I longed to reach out, take him in my arms, and comfort him. Then I wanted to help him work through the grief and pain he was facing and let him know he wasn’t doomed to repeat his dad’s failure. I never want another man to have to face the hurts and pain of both a father’s rejection and the rejection of other Christian men who turned away from me in my hour of need.

It was at this moment that I felt God speak to my heart. He said, «This is only a tenth of the hurt and pain I feel every moment as I look at the faces of my men who feel alone and abandoned by their fathers. I long to be their Father, and I long for my children to rise up and be a father to these men.»

That’s when it hit me. We, as men, need to do this job. We are children of a loving heavenly Father. We need to share this same love with the younger men who have never felt a father’s love.

The apostle Paul was such a man. On his first missionary journey, he met a young man named Timothy. Timothy was a man called by God and full of promise. While he was supported by a strong mother and grandmother, he needed the influence of a godly man in his life. Paul decided to be that man. He took Timothy under his wing. He fathered Him. He let Timothy see what it meant to be a godly man throughout his life and the lives of his companions like Luke and Barnabas. As a result, Timothy became a godly man in his own right, and in time became a strong leader in the early church.

What about you? Is there a young man you could be helping? Church youth groups are full of young men who are products of divorce or abandonment. Can you reach out to them and become a godly influence in their lives? Could you be the man they seek out when they have questions or fears about their future? Could you be a source of encouragement to them in their time of need?

Ask God to give you his heart for the hurting men around you. Ask Him to open doors for you to show His love to another young man. Ask Him to use you to show the love of God to another hurting man. When He places someone in your path, ask Him for the right words and actions to help that young man. Then be obedient to what the Holy Spirit leads you to do. You never know what changes you can make to a world full of hurting young men.

James J. Holden (jjosh@frontier.net), a graduate of Valley Forge Christian College, is a freelance writer with a heart for ministering to men. He writes a monthly article for the Assemblies of God National Men’s Ministry Web site. He recently founded Not Your Dad Ministries (notyourdadministries.com), which provides biblical teaching to help men overcome the pain of their past.

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio…and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned….but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is…how He spoke the universe into being…how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire…etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder..

At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) ….and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God’s handiwork. I remember so many times thinking….’How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???’

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart…how our loving Creator is also our sustainer. And then I lost my breath. And it wasn’t because I was running my treadmill, either!!! It was because he started talking about laminin.I knew about laminin. Here is how wikipedia describes them:

‘Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.’ You see….laminins are what hold us together….LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell..Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn’t know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE. But now I do.

And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)….

Here is what the structure of laminin looks like…AND THIS IS NOT a ‘Christian portrayal’ of it….if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see…

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!

Amazing.

The glue that holds us together…ALL of us….is in the shape of the cross.

Immediately, Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.

‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. ‘

Colossians 1:15-17.

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.

Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together….one cell to another….by the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin ‘glue’ would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!

“Faith is not knowing what the future holds, but knowing who holds the future.”